Five things every gamer should be doing more (and isn’t)

21 July 2016

By Chris Kemp

I’ve lived a long life. As I reach the twilight years of gaming at the ripe old age of 28, I reflect on all the things I wish I’d done more of. The things I wish I could tell my 16 year-old self. Things like “yes, they knew” and “never with shampoo”.

While many of us may have responsibilities and grown-up things to deal with, it’s not too late. There are many things that as gamers, young and old, we should all be doing more of, right now. “But Chris,” you say, indignantly, “I’m older than 28! Am I not more knowledgeable than you?” No, you’re not, you ridiculous manchild. I am a prodigious fountain of wisdom and if you don’t click Read More you will never find true happiness.

Have LAN parties

You might be too old for Pokémon (that’s right, Isaid it) and Heelys, but you’re never too old for this. I dragged my PC over to a friend’s house last weekend, and it was exactly the same as it was when I was ten years old – except this time it was with beer, and nobody showed up at 11pm to tell me to go to bed.

LANs have gone the way of dinosaurs and Ghost-Pops-that-don’t-suck due to the advent of online gaming, and it’s a greater tragedy than that time the most delicious snack food in the world was replaced with an imposter that tastes like a cauldron of bubbling molten ass. While online gaming is a convenient way to hang out with friends without the inconvenience of wearing pants, you just can’t match the joy of triumphantly leering at them after an epic duel, or the raising of fists in shared victory after a come-from-behind win in Dota 2.

Online games are fun, but they’re even more fun when played together. You can also polish off some classic LAN chestnuts like Call of Duty 2, which is still better than any of the last five or six iterations.

Enjoy losing

I’ve spoken a lot about my love-hate relationship with League of Legends, although the “love” part may not have come through quite as strongly. Or at all.

The best decision I ever made was deleting that game, because I realised that my love-hate dichotomy existed on a win-lose axis. A series of lost games left me feeling hollow, like I’d pissed away hours of my life for no gain, which is how I feel after I watch anything with Nicholas Cage in it released in the last sixteen years.

I recently re-installed the rage-inducing horror-show masquerading as a MOBA, but this time I embraced losing. When Russians tell me I’m bad and should get AIDS and die, I joyfully agree. When my rank gets demoted for the second time in a week, I wear it like a badge of honour.

Competitive games can be amazingly fun, but not if you’re only having fun half of the time. Then you’re just a gay person at a bisexual orgy.

Seriously, what image can I put here that wouldn’t get my publishing rights revoked?

Be patient

Now, if you’re reading this and your age starts with a 1, I know you’re an impulsive creature. Teenagers run almost entirely on impulse, which is why sixteen year-old boys are absurdly hygiene-conscious, going to “shower” 6-7 times a day.

Perhaps I should exclude you then, as your brains are still developing some measure of self-control. The rest of you have no excuse. Gamers as a group are less patient than a Sandton tannie at the Home Affairs office, and this leads us down the path of bad decisions.

Bad decisions like pre-orders and day-one purchases. Bad decisions like buying SimCity or Aliens: Colonial Marines or an Apple product. Bad decisions like hollowing out a cucumber and stealing your Mom’s face cream only to find out you’re allergic to – nope, wait, sorry, I’m back on teenagers again.

As I’ve become older and wiser (and lazier and poorer), I’ve realised that buying a game on the first day is about as sensible as buying single-ply toilet paper – you may feel like you’re getting a good deal, but three days later you’re bleeding from your ass. That analogy may not exactly hold up, but what I’m getting at is you’re far better off giving it a week and seeing if you still want it after reading five negative reviews or watching PewDiePie cackle his way through it like a deranged manbaby with a recent head trauma.

I’ve been doing this more and more, and I often find that once the hype glow wears off, I don’t really want it at all. Or, even better, realise you don’t want it enough to drop a grand on it, and wait for it to go on special. I picked up Destiny for R200 the other day, and found it to be okay. Not great, but not awful either, like eating yesterday’s doughnut today.

Become (a little) obsessed

I have an addictive personality. It’s why I’ve never done drugs (that and because they’re bad, m’kay). But what I will do is get into a new game, spend twelve hours reading strategy guides for it then spend then the next 12 in a pool of my own excrement watching videos.

My favourite types of games are the ones I can really sink my teeth into. I don’t get a lot of time to play games anymore, but part of the fun for me can be games that have an online following and community, with plenty of metagaming to occupy myself with in the five or ten minute gaps I have throughout the day.

This is why I always have one or two competitive multiplayer games in which I’m invested – right now it’s probably Overwatch, with CS:GO as my side chick, and League of Legends as the abusive ex-girlfriend with herpes who calls me in the middle of the night when I’m weak and vulnerable.

“Come on baby… it’ll be fun…”

There’s a line to this, of course. I find for me it gets crossed when I start to become too obsessed with actually playing the game. If you go to bed without playing and you’re jonesing for a fix, that’s when it becomes a problem.

What I’ve found to really help with that is to…

Diversify your hobbies

I’ve recently gotten pretty heavily into board games (mildly obsessed, one might say) and I’ve noticed a dramatic change in how I approach video games as a result.

Video games provide a sort of outlet for me – they’re intellectually stimulating, they’re challenging and they help me decompress. Since getting into board games and forming a group that meets weekly, I’ve found that a night of strategic board gaming gives me the satisfaction of a week of video games. If I’m tired during the week now, I go to bed – I don’t feel that pressing need to play an hour or two of Overwatch. I’ve become more sociable, happier and less dependent on getting in “gaming time”.

If you’re a gamer who hasn’t checked out the deep world of hobby board games, I highly recommend that you do. Timeless Board Games has board game days monthly in Jo’burg and Pretoria, and with 200+ demo games available to play and tons of players willing to let a newbie join in, it’s a fantastic place to start. I went to the first one alone, met new people, had an amazing time and formed my current group that meets weekly.

Chris, is… are you having some difficulty? With life, or something? Did something significant happen? You’re actually giving good advice here. I… It feels weird.

Seriously, though. Point 1? Still do it, about once every second or third month. Definitely good times. Of course, LANs need internet now or we can’t play anything that we want to play – but that is a perk that’s not so hard to come by when your gaming circle has become one of self-sufficient adults who all (rightfully) agree that indoor bandwidth is more important plumbing.
Point 2? Easy. Habitually give gg’s at game/round ends, and throw a “good kill” or “nice one” out when a friend (who can hear you – see Point 1 and/or Teamspeak) scores one on you. They’ll be (and should be) obligated to give ’em back in kind, and the circle of friends is all the happier for it.
Unlike the cucumber, Point 3 came naturally for me after getting burned by new-release purchases more often than I care to admit (and before the onset of vehicular repayments). Embracing game delays as good news is a good mental exercise for this.
Four? Every day GTA Online. I think I’m covered.
Lastly, I started playing D&D with a group of actual, real humans – a group I met via MeetUp (my only consistent gain from that experiment). Tons of fun, and definitely a worthwhile hobby. Wholeheartedly recommended. Perhaps a slightly-steep introductory cost if you buy any handbooks and have a thing for pretty dice, but those are fairly optional costs and nothing that should equate to more than two new-release buys; which you’re not doing anymore, remember?

Damnit, you’re right. I’ll have to cook up something super troll for next week 😉

I’ve never done the D&D thing, but I am intrigued.

Global_Saffer

Ah, the mixture of impotent rage and wisdom of a man being dragged towards the dirty 30’s 😉

I’m probably going to attract much hate but….deep breath….Colonial Marines actually is a fairly decent Aliens game. Yes yes yes, it sucked hard at the launch BUT many many patches later and some serious price reductions on Steam, it’s actually pretty fun. Think of it as AvP with better graphics. I picked it up for $3 over a year ago, and had a blast. The AI is still pretty stupid though, but like I said “AvP with better graphics”.

As for pre-ordering; I nailed it with Fallout 4, The Season Pass, Doom, and Mass Effect 3. Oh wait, actually I’m still really angry about ME3 and the day 1 DLC. Oh well, at least EA learnt their lesson on that one and would never do anything like that again, or say…make a Star Wars game without any space based maps. Oh, wait….

LAN parties are something that I miss terribly. Seeing the pain of a loss in a good friends eyes…ah, good times indeed.

I fully approve of a 3 dollar purchase, definitely in the spirit of being patient. Perhaps if I find Colonial Marines for less than a coke I can pick it up 😉

It’s not too late to LAN! THERE’S STILL TIME

Global_Saffer

Put it on your Steam wishlist, and you won’t be disappointed!

I move around so damn much that it’s hard to find gaming buddies to LAN with 🙁

Kyle

Love the article Chris, I to, after having being fondled innappropriately by The Division pre-order balls up, have been left reeling in horror to the idea of buying another day one purchase. Unless its CDPR, they can touch me forever.

As for boardgames, I envy that pretoria has their sh!t together in regards to places you can go to learn and play. Here in the Cape we have places to, but they smell like teenage sweat and ball sacks, terribly difficult to sell the idea to my wife once she stepped inside and promptly left.

As for LAN parties, we are currently organising one with PS4’s and black ops 3, we tried it at the CT R@ge and our squad had an awesome time.

Yeah the actual “game stores” are usually TCG dominated, with a sprinkling of those Warhammer dudes who have dropped several salaries on an army of minis.

Pathfinder has gotten a lot of praise – it’s basically a card-based RPG of sorts. I’m not sure it’s a place I’d start as as far as I know it has quite a lot of errata and rules issues that you have to sift through online, might be a bit confusing for a first game.

If you have a wife who’s keen to play the two most-often praised and recommended “couple games” are Patchwork and Jaipur, both of which are simple to learn but offer a nice dose of strategic depth. Both games also play in around 30 minutes, which is nice.

Never stop the LAN’ing, it’s too much fun.

Dalton Baury

Been wanting to get into board games for a while. I see the recommendation of 2 player games below, is there anything good for 3 to 8 beginners with slight RPG elements ?

When it comes to board games, most don’t play past 6 well unless they’re party games (think 30 seconds and the like, but better) or social deduction games (not sure if you’ve ever played something like Mafia or Werewolf, along those lines). The sweet spot for most boardgames is 3-4, but some do do higher counts.

If you’re looking for a proper sort of videogame like RPG experience (these are often referred to as “Dungeon Crawlers”), then the one that is most often recommended is called Descent, which is also I see available in SA at the moment.

Descent is a tight, elegant game – but it is a little on the heavier side. In boardgames “weight” is used as a term for “complexity”, with the general broad categories being light, medium and heavy. Descent is somewhere around Medium-Heavy.

For something a little easier and more accessible and pretty heavy on the roleplaying you could try Betrayal at House on the Hill. It works great with 5-6 people, and it’s essentially you and your friends exploring a haunted house in a kind of B horror movie environment. You explore rooms, pick up items, roll dice and map out the house. Halfway through a “haunt” happens, and one of you becomes a traitor. The game now becomes everyone vs the traitor. You each get a different rulebook with objectives, the traitor reads it in secret.

The advantage to Betrayal is that there are 50 different Haunts, each of them play out differently. The disadvantage is that it isn’t a particularly “tight” game. If the haunt happens too early or too late, it can be a pretty one-sided victory for the traitor or the heroes. If you like deeply strategic games, it’s not for you. If you want to have fun with friends and get into the roleplaying elements and cheesy story, it can be a blast.

My advice would be to watch playthroughs of the games on YouTube to see if they take your fancy. There’s a great one for Betrayal on a board game series called Tabletop. Feel free to give me a shout if you have any other questions 🙂

Ross Thomson

I can agree, 1-ply is worse than being put on a team of foul mouthed 8 year old Russians.

I work in a government hospital – I know the pain (emotionally and physically).

Oom_Soutie

I’ve never been good at that second one. My girlfriend claims cs go is something of an addiction of mine…an assertion I’ve vehemently denied thus far. But reading through point five, I may have to rethink my stance on that issue.

It took me a while, but it was such a turning point when I got there. One of the things that got me hooked on CS:GO was that I didn’t hate losing too much – as long as individually I do okay, I can enjoy the game. And you never feel like you have zero chance because your bad score isn’t cumulative like it is in MOBAs where everyone is rocking better items and levels, each round is an even playing field.

Plus if you’re doing super kak you can have fun embracing it by just buying shotguns and holding close angles or Mac-10 rushing, lol.

Oom_Soutie

B rush, don’t stop! Best strategy ever. I’m particularly fond of sitting up I’m apps with a mag 7. The one tap headshots with that gun are so incredibly satisfying!

Add me on steam bud. Username is identical to my one on here.

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